on the death of Paul Tibbets

[ulysses]

I don't quite understand the venom reserved here for Tibbets on his death ("glad he's dead" and the like). Yes, he piloted Enola Gay over Hiroshima, but how many others, from both sides in the war, piloted bombers on conventional airstrikes over population centers? It's not as if Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the first bombings of civilian areas. Thousands died in the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, and more were likely killed in the firebombing of Tokyo in February, 1945, than were in Hiroshima. That's just on the Allied side. Is it more defensible to kill the same number less effeciently?

This is to defend neither the actions of Paul Tibbets nor atomic weapons, but to point out that the horrors of war, and the advent of man's inhumanity toward his fellow man, did not begin or end with the splitting of the atom.

[Catch22Dem]

1. Tibbets was a pilot flying a mission

He didn't, couldn't, fathom the magnitude of his actions that day and spent the rest of his life haunted by that day. RIP Airman.

[Faygo Kid]

3. Precisely. Thanks for posting.

Hold our leaders accountable, not a soldier on a mission.

That said, I understand he is a figure of history. Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of a bus. Of little acorns do mighty oaks grow, good and bad. I don't hold Paul Tibbets responsible.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Thank you

I see calling him out for his mission akin to the 'baby killer' bullshit of the guys coming back from Viet Nam.

He was a guy with a job, doing what he trained to do ...... fly a bomber in a war. Not some hellbent ideologue on some maniacal mission.

[Adsos Letter]

2. Well said, o fair Ulysses...

well said.

[RubyDuby in GA]

4. How dare you use reason and intellect against us!

How dare you use a well-thought out argument putting the issue into historical context??? It's enough to make me want to denounce my history degree!

THE. NERVE.

:sarcasm: for those who think I was being serious

:P to uly :hi: Chris feeling better?

[ulysses]

12. :)

He is well, indeed. Have we rescheduled?

:hi:

[Oddball]

5. true

Tibbets was no more or less a villain because the bomb he dropped was atomic. War devastates by design. Tibbets is the kind of asshole i dislike regardless of the particulars of his weaponry.

[Bitwit1234]

6. I posted this earlier . I met him briefly and he was a nice man.

He and the members of his crew had no idea what the bomb would do. He flew thru the smoke a couple of times for goodness sake. If the man and the crew knew that they wouldn't. Some of the me members of the crew died of cancer. He had some kind of blood disease or something. He was upset.

And I don't care what people say. a Very dear friend of mine was in the Marines. They were all prepared and loaded up to attack Japan. And they were glad they got the reprieve when the dropped the bomb. What in the hell did people expect. Japan attacked us. That was different from bush attacking Iraq. And if we used anything in our power to end the war than so be it. Did they have a loved one facing death hell no. The bomb may have killed a lot of people, but it was the Emperors. fault. BEFORE TRUMAN DROPPED THE BOMB HE ASKED HIS TO SURRENDER. He told him the would bomb. He refused. After the dropped the first bomb TRUMAN ASKED HIM TO SURRENDER HE REFUSED AGAIN. SO. THEY HAD TWO CHANCES AND IGNORED IT.

[Oddball]

9. also true

You know, I can't help but wonder what I would have done if I had been a soldier or pilot in a similar position.

[lonestarnot]

10. mixed feelings here. Not an easy subject.

[Oddball]

14. yes, I know a person..

..actually am related by marriage to a person, who was a WW2 soldier whose unit was expected to be sent from Germany (which had just surrendered) to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. He would be in the Paul Tibbets/Atomic Bomb fan club, if there were one.

I can't judge him.

[lonestarnot]

22. Uncle came home from there and moved out into seclusion. He may have been

another Ted had the revolver he always carried in a shoulder holster not dropped out onto a rock and shot him dead between the eyes. Sorry, you prollee didn't need to hear that, but a true story.

[Oddball]

28. okay, I missed the point

and I admit I've been drinking, but WTF?

[lonestarnot]

29. Welcome to DU, have another.

:toast:

[ChazII]

34. Thank you for displaying common sense. n/t

[Wetzelbill]

7. there are people here who

get all riled up when a person dies. It's gets ugly when a well known person, or someone connected to a certain event, dies, it could be Steve Irwin, Anna Nicole Smith or now Paul Tibbets, it doesn't matter, but someone will find something bad to say about them. That's just how some people are, it happens on DU just like anywhere in life.

[lonestarnot]

8. 400K or over in one night.

[ulysses]

15. ?

Huh?

[lonestarnot]

33. Sorties.

[Rick Myers]

11. Paul Tibbits did not build the bomb, nor did he pick the target.

He and his crew were picked to carry out a special mission, and they did their job. Was it right or wrong? That's not the point, they carried out orders.


We cannot blame the crews that delivered those weapons.

Godspeed Paul Tibbits

[Horseradish]

23. I do not condemn Paul Tibbets

Although, as he said, "I have never lost a night's sleep over the bombing", I have to ask, what human would not admit that they lost some sleep over being responsible for killing over 100,000 people with one push of the button? Well, he was a military man and he did his duty while having no idea what he was dropping, so of course he could sleep at night. At that point you're just an American doing your duty. Would we have done anything different? Would we have questioned the bomb in our bomb bay? No, we would have flown and carried out the mission. Paul Tibbets was no extraordinary hero because of the A-bomb ... he was just a pilot who was fulfilling his duty. Who was the bombadier of the Enola Gay? He was the one who pulled the trigger. Why hasn't he become famous?

My point: No one in the world had any idea what they were dropping. That's how it works. No one went to Paul Tibbets and asked, "are you okay with killing 120,000 plus innocent Japanese civilians in Hiroshima with one bomb from your plane?" He might have said, "No. that's a big burden to bear ..." But they didn't give him that option.

Paul Tibbets is not a hero, nor is he a villain ...

R.I.P. Paul Tibbets

[rockymountaindem]

31. Well, he didn't push the button

The bombardier did.

[Sal Minella]

25. As Tibbets said in an interview, it's war itself that's insane.

[lonestarnot]

37. He said that?

Cool.

[Sal Minella]

40. In the NPR story ::

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15858203

he says it's beside the point to talk about the "morality" of using the bomb -- "There is no morality in warfare. War itself is immoral."

2:27 - 2:40 in the clip

[slowry]

16. He always just seemed... cold.

Take for example this snippet, from an interview from 2002 (ST = Studs Terkel):

ST: One big question. Since September 11, what are your thoughts? People talk about nukes, the hydrogen bomb.
PT: Let's put it this way. I don't know any more about these terrorists than you do, I know nothing. When they bombed the Trade Centre I couldn't believe what was going on. We've fought many enemies at different times. But we knew who they were and where they were. These people, we don't know who they are or where they are. That's the point that bothers me. Because they're gonna strike again, I'll put money on it. And it's going to be damned dramatic. But they're gonna do it in their own sweet time. We've got to get into a position where we can kill the bastards. None of this business of taking them to court, the hell with that. I wouldn't waste five seconds on them.
ST: What about the bomb? Einstein said the world has changed since the atom was split.
PT: That's right. It has changed.
ST: And Oppenheimer knew that.
PT: Oppenheimer is dead. He did something for the world and people don't understand. And it is a free world.
ST: One last thing, when you hear people say, "Let's nuke 'em," "Let's nuke these people," what do you think?
PT: Oh, I wouldn't hesitate if I had the choice. I'd wipe 'em out. You're gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we've never fought a damn war anywhere in the world where they didn't kill innocent people. If the newspapers would just cut out the shit: "You've killed so many civilians." That's their tough luck for being there.

[Catch22Dem]

17. Those aren't the words of a cold man

Those are the words of a broken man. A man who spent 60 years trying to make sense out of, and justify to himself, what he had done.

[ulysses]

18. didn't say he was a paragon of virtue.

:)

[Oddball]

19. WOW. Studs could cut through..

..the bullshit. I've never read this interview. (What was it from "Working" ??? Jesus.) There are some people who could be the "nicest" person in the world at the Easter Egg Hunt, unless they had a "mission" to bomb the fucking thing.

That's the thing about sociopaths. They can so readily pass, unless you question the underlying pathology of their belief system.

[Oeditpus Rex]

20. Why not reserve some vitriol for Maj. Thomas Ferebee,

the Enola Gay's bombardier, who actually released the bomb? Or Capt. Bill Parsons, the bomb commander, who not only armed "Little Boy" in flight but witnessed Trinity, the test of the plutonium implosion bomb, and therefore knew first-hand of its destructive capability?

Why not include Leo Szilárd, who developed the theory of the nuclear chain reaction? Or Ernest Rutherford, the first person to split an atom? Or Robert Oppenheimer, the chief scientist of the Manhattan Project?

Hell, why not just hold mankind in contempt for its propensity to wage war?

[ulysses]

21. bingo!

Hell, why not just hold mankind in contempt for its propensity to wage war?

Yup.

[Oddball]

27. I tried to send 'Mankind" a letter once...

..the Post Office wouldn't deliver it.

Mankind didn't die today. Tibbets did. Mankind never pulled a trigger or dropped a bomb. Mankind isn't on anyone's list for christmas cards. It's tiny little evil individual bastards that commit the crimes of mankind against mankind. If everyone is responsible, then no one is responsible. If no one is accountable then what hope is there?

[Oeditpus Rex]

30. You may choose whom you wish to hold accountable

I won't choose Tibbets. All he did was fly a plane. He had some idea of what its payload would do, but so did every crew member on every B-29 on missions over Japan, every B-17, B-24 and Lancaster on missions over Germany, every He-111 on missions over London, etc. etc. etc.

[Mike Daniels]

36. Why stop there? Let's hold the captain and crew of the USS Indianapolis in contempt as well

They were the ones that delivered the package to its preliminary destination in the first place

I guess dying by dehydration, drowning and shark bite was just retribution by some people's standards.

[razzleberry]

24. he knew not, what he was doing (at the time)

his orders were to.
drop one bomb on the headquarters
of the 5th Japanese army at Hiroshima


he didn't know the basics of the A bomb

[qdemn7]

26. My firm opinion

Has always been that if the bomb had been available 6 months earlier, OR the war in the ETO would have lasted 6 months longer, then Berlin would have been the first target. And no one, nobody, except some Germans, would be saying a damn thing today, since the attitude would be the dirty Nazis got what they deserved.

Those scientists who worked on the bomb (many of the Jewish refugees from Hitler) did not develop scruples until it was clear that Germany would no longer be the target. They knew for a fact that Berlin, and its civilians would certainly be the main target. And for those who cry moral outrage I see no difference, none, between the fire-bombing of Dresden, Tokyo and other Japanese cities and the atomic bombings. Dead is dead.

It's truly amazing how many people still view the Japanese as victims after they killed 20,000,000 Chinese. The German killed 20,000,000 Russians and no one sees the Germans as victims today. Amazing what radiation can do.

[Spinzonner]

32. It was an aBOMBination

preceded by many more abominations, some equally destructive in loss of life

The war made people do ugly things and people make wars.

So the shame, if any, was not his it was mankind's

[fujiyama]

35. Regardless, this wasn't his decision to make

I doubt he understood the magnitude of the weapon he would unleash.

And even if he did, he very likely would have still agreed to drop the bomb. Most figured that an invasion of the mainland would be inevitable.

It's important for people to understand the prevailing attitude and perspective of the day. Most Americans wanted to see the damn war end - by any means necessary. I think many forget over half a million Americans died in WWII (and that's nothing compared to so many other nations).

He was a soldier following orders against an enemy that had started the war. It could very well have been any one of thousands that served in the air force in WWII that served out that mission.

[nashville_brook]

38. link to NPR story -- >>

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15858203

[Olney Blue]

39. He was the messenger delivering the message.

[Forkboy]

41. Can't agree after what happened at that airshow in '75.

Piloting a mock bombing run, including a mushroom cloud explosion, for the amusement of people or nostalgia, is just downright sad and ugly.I could almost understand if it happened shortly after war, but thirty years later? Blech.Not the kind of thing I want to celebrate.

I'm not glad he died, but I'm not sorry either.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

42. Killing civilians is a war crime..no matter who does it.

[Crabby Appleton]

43. War is all hell - William Tecumseh Sherman

There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. – From an address to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy, June 19, 1879, known as his "War is hell" speech - William Tecumseh Sherman


I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation. (from a letter written in May 1865) - William Tecumseh Sherman




RIP BG Tibbets